annual director’s reportisc-mirror.iris.washington.edu/docs/dirreport/2008dr.pdf2008 annual...

INTERNATIONAL SEISMOLOGICAL CENTRE

2008 Annual Director’s Report

The year 2008 has been a year of the active search for further support, new members of staff and directions of further developments. The Centre received a lot of good publicity. New data, products and services were offered to users. It was a challenging yet successful year.

ISC: Annual 2008 Director’s Report

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CONTENTS:

Executive Summary

Staff

Operations

Developments

Projects

Finances

Scientific Liaisons

Citations of the ISC data

Summary of Achievements


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2008 has been a challenging yet a very successful year for the ISC. Through the increased

support from existing and new members and also additional grant secured from the UK

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the ISC’s finances have been substantially improved

from last year with 68% of funding now arriving at the ISC bank account in UK sterling - the

currency in which most of the ISC expenditure occurs.

As a result, two new members of staff were hired to develop existing and new services that

the ISC provides to seismologists and geophysicists worldwide. The ISC building and

computer facilities have been improved.

IASPEI Reference Event List (GT) is now accommodated within the ISC Bulletin and also

distributed by the ISC along with station arrivals.

The total period of the ISC collection of station arrivals has been increased by further four

years by inclusion of the ISS data covering the period 1960-1963.

1652 USArray current and planned sites are included in the International Registry and the

USArray reviewed station picks are now part of the ISC Bulletin. Several other new data sets

were acquired through the year. Current final bulletin collection from networks now stands at

13.4 months behind real time.

In addition, to fill the time gap between seismic event occurrence and corresponding bulletin

publication, the ISC runs the collection of reviewed provisional data from approximately 20

data centres around the world. This information arrives within hours/days/weeks after event

occurrence and being grouped and distributed the next day after submission as part of the

automatic ISC Bulletin.

The delay in the production of the reviewed ISC Bulletin has been eliminated by completing

review of 14.5 months worth of the Bulletin during this year.

Further funds have been raised or committed by new and existing members to allow the ISC

to hire further essential personnel in the coming year to develop the desperately required

interactive bulletin analysis tool and boost a new bulletin data search.


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STAFF

OPERATIONS:

James Harris, United Kingdom, System &

Database Administrator

Baokun Li, China, Seismologist / Analyst

Peter Dawson, United Kingdom, Data

Collection Manager, retired in July

Beatriz Vera, Colombia, Seismologist /

Lead Analyst

Przemas Kowalski, Poland, Seismologist /

Analyst, left in Dec

John Eve, United Kingdom, Data

Collection Officer, joined in April


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DEVELOPMENT

István Bondár, Hungary, Senior

Seismologist / Developer, joined in July

Oriol Gaspà Rebull, Spain, Seismologist /

Developer

Juan Benjumea Cadavid, Colombia,

Seismologist / Developer, joined in June

MANAGEMENT&ADMIN

Dmitry Storchak, Russia/United Kingdom,

Director, appointed from Jan 1

Maureen Aspinwall, United Kingdom,

Administration Officer


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OPERATIONS

INTERNATIONAL STATION REGISTRY

Traditionally the ISC maintains the International Seismographic Station Registry (IR)

together with the World Data Center for Seismology, Denver (NEIC). The Registry allocates

globally unique codes to seismic stations and currently has over 16.5 thousand stations

documented. Those

stations that have reported

to the ISC are indicated on

figure 1. The ISC runs a

popular web-page

allowing review of already

registered stations as well

as submission of

parameters required to

register a new station. The

most recent large task was

registration of 1652

stations of USArray.

Valuable assistance has

been received from IRIS

during this process. Over six hundred already operational USArray sites have been fully

registered. Station codes for projected sites of the Transportable Array have been reserved for

future use without specifying exact coordinates. It is likely that during the actual installation

process some sites may be shifted some distance in search for better local geological and

noise conditions. Once re-measured these coordinates will then be fully registered in the IR.

STANDARD BULLETIN DATA COLLECTION

The standard ISC data collection is the collection of final reviewed bulletin data from

approximately 120 different agencies around the world. We continued to reduce the delay in

collection by 2.5 days per month on average. At the end of 2008 it stood at 13.4 months

behind real time with almost all agencies being able to cope with the data delivery schedule.

We plan to stop accelerating the data collection once the schedule reaches the mark of 12

months behind real time.

Half-way through the year the Data Collection Manager has retired. In the expectation of his

retirement, 3 months in advance, the new Data Collection Officer was hired and trained. As

compared to the previous arrangement, the new officer is not involved in programming. All

changes to existing agency-specific parsers and writing parsers for new data has become a

responsibility of existing development staff. The new Data Collection Officer now works

four days a week and proved to be able to cope with the data collection rather well.

Figure 1. Approximately 16,500 seismic stations are currently registered in

the International Seismographic Station Registry (IR) (black dots). This

year 1652 USArray stations have been fully registered (red dots) or

reserved.


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Figure 2 shows approximately 120 agencies that routinely report final reviewed bulletin data

to the ISC. Red colour on this figure indicates the dry land territories that are covered by

these reports. It is clear

that further work on

improving the ISC data

collection in Africa,

South America and parts

of Eastern Europe and

Asia is urgently required.

Some territories in

Eastern Europe, although

appear white, in fact are

already covered through

contributions of the

European-Mediterranean

Seismological Centre

(EMSC). Large events with magnitude 4.5-5.0 and above in Africa and South America are of

course reported by the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), International Data

Centre (IDC) and other agencies.

Starting with data month of July 2006 IRIS DMC began contributing station arrival times that

were picked and reviewed by USArray Array Network Facility in San Diego. The data set

represents a considerable increase in station arrival

numbers associated to already known events in the US

and moderate to large events worldwide. Whilst being

a major source of data for tomographic research, this

data set presents a major challenge to the ISC:

Current ISC location algorithm is not designed

to cope with the bias caused by large concentrations of

seismic stations in specific azimuthal directions

Current ISC Bulletin review procedures are

designed for analysts to review each station arrival.

The increased numbers of stations reporting the same

events present a challenge for the editing team.

Also new bulletin data sets were received from the following institutions:

Geophysical Observatory, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia;

Institute of Geophysics and Geology, Chisinau, Moldova;

Geophysical Survey, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk,

Russia

Figure 2. Approximately 120 agencies around the world (black dots) report

bulletin data to the ISC. Dry land territories covered are in red.

Figure 3. Number of arrival picks

reported by USArray stations for events in

the ISC Bulletin per month.


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Centre of Geophysical Monitoring, National Academy of Science, Minsk, Belarus

An important advance has been made by the China Earthquake Networks Center of China

Earthquake Administration (CENC/CEA). In the past earthquake hypocentres and station

arrival data from 24 registered stations were reported separately from each other. As a result

of the joint efforts of colleagues at CENC and the Chinese speaking member of the ISC staff,

CENC is now reporting its data in the ISF format, where hypocentre solutions are followed

by station arrivals. All cases where USGS solutions are adopted for association of Chinese

station arrivals are clearly indicated. Another new advance is the reporting of the un-

associated station readings (out of 24 registered stations) that CENC staff haven’t used for

their bulletin production, yet these data are useful if associated to other events in the ISC

Bulletin.

During the Director’s visit to CEA in October a request to increase the number of reporting

stations was made. We are hoping for a positive outcome to this request.

The ISC data collection mostly runs smoothly, but in a few cases the data collection has been

subject of long and difficult communication with hours, days and weeks spent trying to bring

data that in other times would have arrived effortlessly.

The data from the

CWB (Chinese

Taipei) have been

available to

ISS/ISC since

1930. As a result

of several upgrades

the CWB network

of seismometers

and accelerometers

remains one of the

densest in the

world. Following

an unfortunate

dispute on the

agency name, the

CWB data are now missing from the ISC Bulletin from July 1, 2005 (see figure 4). Long and

slow-moving negotiations are continuing, helped by the Institute of Earth Sciences of

Academia Sinica (IES AS) and China Earthquake Administration. The ISC Director, with the

financial support from IES AS was able to visit CWB on a side trip from 14 WCEE in

Beijing and present the ISC’s point of view and suggestions to relevant officials at CWB. The

ISC is hoping for eventual resolution to this crisis. In the mean time events in the region are

reported by the JMA (Japan), PHIVOLCS (Philippines), IES AS (Chinese Taipei),

Figure 4. Events in the ISC Bulletin before and after 1 July 2005 in the vicinity of

the island of Taiwan.


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CENC/CEA (China), NEIC/USGS, IDC/CTBTO and other agencies. The completeness of

the ISC Bulletin in the area has, of course, suffered enormously.

No data for data year 2006 have been received from Saudi Arabia. This was caused by

operational disruptions following the transfer of responsibilities for running the National

Seismic Network of Saudi Arabia from King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in

Riyadh to Saudi Geological Survey in Jeddah.

The ISC also experienced rather sporadic data submission from National Seismic Network of

Kuwait.

Following the Great Sumatra earthquake, network operations of Badan Meteorologi dan

Geofisica, Indonesia were disrupted, archives lost and normal data contribution stopped. To

compensate for the loss, the ISC now receives automatic alert messages and picks from

stations installed by the GFZ Potsdam for the Indian Ocean Alert System. We also receive

teleseismic picks, rather sporadically, from a network installed with the help from LDG a

number of years ago. Search for new data from the region from networks installed by several

institutions from Japan and China continues.

PROVISIONAL BULLETIN DATA COLLECTION

In 2008 the ISC stepped

up its collection of

provisional bulletin data

from various networks

and data centres. These

data are expected to

undergo at least a

minimal review by local

analysts. Typically these

data include a

provisional hypocentre

location, magnitude

estimate, moment tensor

solution and station

arrival data, though

variations are large from agency to agency. Approximately 20 agencies reported provisional

data to the ISC at the year end (see figure 5).

Provisional hypocentre solutions are being grouped in the ISC database within a day after

receipt and made available through the standard ISC Bulletin search procedure (see figure 6).

For each event an output includes several hypocentre solutions reported by various agencies,

all reported magnitude estimates and station arrival data.

Figure 5. Approximately 20 networks and data centres report provisional

reviewed bulletin data to the ISC.


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Figure 6. Provisional hypocentre solutions and made available through the standard ISC Bulletin search

procedure.

By clicking a logo provided for each reporter, the user is re-directed to a corresponding recent

event notification web-page of an agency that provided the original bulletin data (see figure

7). This is an additional service that the ISC provides by giving further publicity to national

networks and data centres involved in the dissemination of information about recent seismic

events locally and on a regional or even global basis.

Figure 7. By clicking logos on the ISC Bulletin page users are re-directed to the original recent event

notification pages of the corresponding reporting agencies.

Figure 8 shows the magnitude distribution of events reported to the ISC within 3 days, 7

days, 1 month and 4 months after event occurrence. It appears from the graph that all events

with magnitude 4.5 and above are reported within a first week. Further reports beyond one

week add information to already reported large and moderate events plus inform about

further smaller events.


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This additional initial data collection is intended to fill the gap between the event occurrence

and the time when the final Reviewed ISC Bulletin becomes available. It presents an attempt

to consolidate the effort of many data centres

and networks to make their data available

internationally in good time. Currently the ISC

observes a delay of at least one day before

making these data available. At this stage ISC

does not compute or publish its own event

solutions. This service is not intended to be

used by media or civil protection agencies. It is

indeed designed to be used by seismologists.

Obviously provisional data from agencies are

later substituted with their final bulletin data,

well before the ISC analysts make a final

review of the ISC Bulletin. The ISC

hypocentre solutions are still based on the final

set of bulletin data given by each reporter.

ISC BULLETIN REVIEW

The team of three ISC analysts reviewed 14.5 months worth of the bulletin data in 2008. The

team was helped by the Director during the last steps in the analysis procedure.

Following the ISC Governing Council decision, the ISC has used AK135 velocity model to

compute ISC solutions from data year 2006. These solutions are reviewed by the ISC

analysts. In order to provide consistency with the previous years, an additional set of

automatic ISC locations based on Jeffreys-Bullen travel time tables (coded as ISCJB) is

produced for those events with AK135 solution available. The only ISCJB solutions that are

reviewed are those that show considerable departures from standard ISC locations based on

AK135. Producing two sets of ISC solutions will continue until such a point when the entire

ISC dataset is recomputed with AK135 using currently developed location procedure.

It would be impossible

for the ISC to sustain a

review of every reported

event, so from data year

1999 the data collection

thresholds were removed

and review thresholds

introduced. Following

various recent

improvements this

system continues to

Figure 8. Magnitude distribution of recent events

reported to the ISC within 3 days, 7 days, 1month

and 4 months after event occurrence shown in

shades of grey, the sooner - the darker.

Figure 9. The total number of events in the ISC Bulletin (grey) and the

number of events reviewed by the ISC analysts (red) per year.

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

300000

year

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serve its purpose by restricting the number of seismic events to be reviewed by ISC analysts.

Figure 9 shows annual numbers of all seismic events versus the number of events reviewed

by the ISC analysts. The ISC analysts normally review approximately 20% of all events in

the ISC Bulletin. Although most of the Bulletin preparation is done automatically, it is the

analyst’s review that makes the Bulletin accurate and trustworthy. The accuracy of AK135-

based ISC solutions and magnitude estimates, proper grouping of reported information

between the events in the bulletin is under constant scrutiny.

The ISC analysts also

review the correctness of

automatic association of

reported station arrivals

to events, reported

arrival’s phase

identification and travel-

time residuals. As the

number of events stays

the same on average, the

number of associated

arrivals gradually grows

out of control as can be seen on figure 10. The introduction of new data sets, although

beneficial for bulletin users, put an extra strain on the ISC analyst resources. The introduction

of large data sets, especially the USArray have indeed slowed down the review process.

Thus a new approach to the Bulletin review process is required. One of the answers is the

introduction of an interactive editing system in place of the paper-based batch-type analysis.

Also the ISC needs to concentrate on the review of outliers instead of reviewing all data. The

system required will take a long time to design, develop and test in operations. Nevertheless,

it has become so urgent that no expense should be spared. Any delay in the development and

implementation of new software will only worsen the situation with the analyst team

gradually requiring more and more staff to be able to cope with the load and the schedule.

ISC WEB and FTP SERVICES

The ISC web-site as a whole and the Bulletin search in particular continued to grow in

popularity over 2008 (see figure 11). The number of hits (excluding web crawlers) reached

2.2 millions, having increased 55% compared to year 2007. Although the number of Bulletin

searches compared to 2007 went down 50%, the actual amount of Bulletin data taken has

actually doubled to 20 Gb.

Figure 10. The total number of station arrivals in the ISC Bulletin (grey) and

the number of station arrivals reviewed by the ISC analysts (red) per year.

Number of station arrivals in the

ISC Bulletin

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2000000

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year

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Figure 11. Number of ISC website hits (grey, left axis) and number of ISC Bulletin searches (red, right axis) per

month.

The most popular services were (in the order of presentation):

International Station Registry (up ten times compared to 2007);

Bulletin search;

Bibliography search (up two times compared to 2007);

Maps using the bulletin search data;

Links to agencies providing real time data;

Search of original contributed to the ISC data;

SKS splitting data.

The statistics of the ISC web-site use per country is shown on figure 12. Although net, gov,

edu and com are the domains mostly registered in the US, they are shown separately. In any

case the US is by far the main user of our services followed by the UK, China, Japan, Greece,

Italy, Russia, France and Germany.

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2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Hits (left axis) Searches (right axis)


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Figure 12. ISC website use per country, percents. Category “Others” includes all users with a share of less

than one percent.

DEVELOPMENTS

ISS DATA (1960-1963)

The ISC data collection

has always included the

hypocentre solutions of

events in the first part of

the 20th

century that were

mostly based on the data

of the ISC’s predecessor

– the International

Seismological Summary

(ISS). Yet the ISC data

users were never able to

acquire the station arrival

data that were available

in a somewhat unusual

United States 19.1

United Kingdom 8.6

net 6.1

China 5.9

Japan 5.5

Greece 4.4Italy 4.3Russia 3.8

gov 3.3

France 3.2

localhost 2.8

com 2.7

Germany 2.5

edu 2.4

Chile 1.9

Turkey 1.3Colombia 1.2

Indonesia 1Canada 1

New Zealand 1

Others 18

Figure 13. Epicentres of seismic events in the International Seismological

Summaries (ISS) for 1960-1963.


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form in the paperback

copies of the ISS,

covering a total period

from 1918 till 1963.

This year, thanks to

continuing work of

Antonio Villaseñor of

the Institute of Earth

Sciences ―Jaume

Almera‖ and Bob

Engdahl of Colorado

University, the ISC was

able to introduce to its

database station arrival picks for ISS events in 1960-1963. Various errors in epicentre

information and some missing events were also corrected. Figures 13 and 14 show the

geographical distribution of events for this period of time as well as positions of those

stations that contributed station arrival picks for this events.

The magnitude distribution graph (figure 15)

gives a rough idea of the overall

completeness of the bulletin during this

period of time. The odd high pick at M=3

merely reflects the number of events where

no magnitude estimate is available. One of

the known deficiencies of the ISS data is that

there were no magnitude estimates published,

so that these had to be taken from several

other sources of global and regional data.

As a result of this development the ISC

bulletin data collection grown ―backwards‖ as

opposed to normal growth as years go by. It

now contains station data covering a total

period from 1960 till 2008. It is expected that

further ISS data covering the first part of 20th

century will be made available to the ISC Bulletin users in due course.

IASPEI GT LIST

The International Seismological Centre now maintains the IASPEI database of Reference

Events (earthquakes and explosions) for which epicentre information is known with high

confidence (to 10km or better (GT10)) with seismic signals recorded at regional and/or

teleseismic distances. It should be noted that the depth of these events is not known to the

Figure 14. Positions of seismic stations that contributed arrival data to the

International Seismological Summaries (ISS) in 1960-1963.

Figure 15. Magnitude distribution of events in the

International Seismological Summaries (ISS) in

1960-1963. The large peak at magnitude 3 indicates

events with no magnitude estimate available.

Null

magnitudes


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same level of accuracy as the epicentre. The global effort of collecting and validating GT

events was coordinated by the CoSOI/IASPEI working group on Reference Events for

Improved Location chaired

by Bob Engdahl and Paul

Richards. This database of a

significantly large number

of reference events (over

7,000) and approximately

500,000 station arrivals

facilitates better

visualization of the Earth

structure, better modelling

of velocities of seismic

waves, more accurate travel

time determinations and

increased accuracy of event

locations. ISC users are able

to search this database using a web application and receive GT locations, corresponding ISC

locations along with station arrival data available for each event. A cross-link to the ISC

Bulletin is provided for users to go between ISC and GT databases. A graph on the left shows

comparative numbers of nuclear explosions, chemical explosions and natural seismic events

in each GT category.

Figure 17. Number of nuclear explosions,

chemical explosions and natural earthquakes in

each GT category.

ISC LOCATION PROCEDURES

As described above, the first step in the process of modernizing the ISC location procedures

was the adoption of the AK135 velocity model for computing ISC hypocentres whilst still

Figure 16. Events in the IASPEI list of Reference earthquakes and

explosions. Colours indicate the GT accuracy to which the position of

epicentre of each event is known.


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producing locations based on Jeffreys-Bullen travel time tables. At this point there are

approximately 26 thousand events in the ISC Bulletin with both AK135 and JB based ISC

solutions. The mean difference is 5.4km with 90% of the locations within 15 km. A 1.4 s

origin time difference reflects the JB P baseline shift.

The ISC senior seismologist/developer has been working on further modernization of the ISC

location procedures. Several computer bugs have been identified and eliminated. The station

elevation and ellipticity corrections have been reviewed and rectified where necessary. Our

next plans include:

Using phases made available by AK135 such as PKP, core phases and further depth-

sensitive phases including pwP;

Improving relative weighting scheme between phases;

Introducing probabilistic phase identification methods;

Obtaining starting location via Nearest Neighbour Algorithm;

Accounting for correlated model error structure;

Characterizing reading errors by non-Gaussian, skewed and heavy-tailed probability

distributions;

Using measured azimuth and slowness;

Improving magnitude determination procedures.

The following contributions of computer code were received to assist this development:

pwP corrections from E.R. Engdahl;

Nearest Neighbour Algorithm from B.L.N. Kennett and M.S. Sambridge;

Depth phases for improved depth determination from J.R. Murphy and B.W. Barker.

Once the algorithms have been coded, tested, approved by the ISC Governing Council and

put into operation, there is a plan to re-compute the entire ISC data collection from 1960 till

present, using the newly adopted procedures and the AK135 velocity model.

AUTOMATIC WAVEFORM MEASUREMENTS

We also plan to improve the accuracy of the ISC Bulletin by gaining necessary limited

information from the waveforms widely available on-line. A dedicated member of the

development staff has been preparing to carry out experiments on a limited set of stations in

order to:

Measure body-wave amplitudes in accordance with the recommendations of the

IASPEI WG on Magnitude Measurement; based on reported parametric data we often

do not know how amplitudes are measured; consistent amplitude measurements will

improve magnitude determination;

Pick teleseismic depth phases; this will improve our capability to determine accurate

event depths;


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Estimate signal-to-noise ratio; this will facilitate the SNR-based weighting schemes.

It is believed that taking this information consistently using the same technique has a chance

to contribute to the Bulletin in the positive way, even when measurements will be taken

automatically with station-to-station consistency observed.

DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES (2009-2011)

A separate document has been prepared by the Director to outline further development

strategies for the next three years. This document has been subject to discussion at the ISC

Executive Committee and the ISC Governing Council. An updated version is available from

the ISC web-site.

PROJECTS

CTBTO-LINK

Following a long and difficult application process, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth

Office (FCO) has awarded the ISC with a three year grant to set up a dedicated and secure

link to the ISC database for the CTBTO PTS and National Data Centres. The UK FCO

agreed to provide 90% of the total required funding (£89,524) on the condition that four other

relevant institutions from Nordic countries were to contribute remaining 10%.

Under this project the ISC will install a dedicated server to hold a mirror version of the ISC

database and create web-based software to query the ISC database in ways specific to the

monitoring community. It is expected that in three years time PTS will consider the

feasibility of supporting maintenance of this system beyond this project.

Effectively the project started only in late Nov 2008 when the first quarterly FCO payment

was received. The server has been purchased, configured and installed. The ISC Director and

Systems and Database Administrator travelled to the IDC to meet colleagues at PTS and

discuss the system configuration and software design. The work on the database mirroring

and software design continues.

It is essential that achievements in almost all aspects of this project will advance the ISC

services to researchers from existing member-institutions.

FINANCES

The detailed financial statements of the ISC for 2008 were audited by Griffins, Chartered

Accountants (Newbury, UK) and approved by Prof. John Woodhouse of the ISC Executive

Committee. These statements present the state of ISC's financial affairs as at 31 December

2008.


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INCOME

In 2008, the ISC had a total income of £ 503,613 from national contributions, UK FCO grant,

sponsorship from Munich Re, the income from selling ISC publications plus interest from the

ISC bank accounts. This amounted to almost 16% more than was budgeted and approved by

the ISC Governing Council. In comparison with 2007, this was a 26% increase in total

income.

In accordance with the decision of the Governing Council, in 2008 the ISC sent invoices to

their members in GBP for the first time. This proved largely successful with the funds being

readily available to spend in the currency our expenses occur giving the ISC greater long-

term stability. Figure 18 shows the dramatic change to parts of the income in 2007 and 2008

denominated in USD, GBP and Euro.

Figure 18. The change in fraction of the overall income paid in US dollars, British

pounds and Euros between 2007 and 2008.

The exchange rate between GBP and USD fluctuated between £1=$1.99 at the start of the

year, to £1=$2 in the middle of the year, and finishing at the end of December at £1=$1.46.

The exchange rate between GBP and Euro fluctuated between £1=1.36€ at the start of the

year, to £1=1.26€ in the middle of the year, and finishing at the end of December at

£1=1.03€. The benefit of invoicing member organizations in British pounds was to reduce

where possible the dependency of the ISC resources from these fluctuations. As a result only

32% of the ISC income in 2008 was subject to these fluctuations compared to 81% in 2007.

During 2008, three more members, each with one unit, joined the ISC Governing Council:

AWE Blacknest, UK

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Meteorological Organization and Seismology, Ministry of Transport, Iraq

Seismic Research Unit, UWI, Trinidad & Tobago.

Following our request to support new developments at the ISC, eight more units were raised

by existing members generously increasing their contributions:

INGV, Italy increased from 5 units to 9,

NORSAR, Norway - from 1 to 3 units,

Uppsala University, Sweden - from 1 to 2 units.

GFZ, Germany - from 1 to 2 units,

IFREE/JAMSTEC also joined in support of the ISC development with the 2008 membership

payment (5 units) received in January 2009.

First payment of £10,108 from the FCO grant was received to develop a dedicated link to the

ISC database for PTS CTBTO and National Data Centres.

Sponsorship of $5,000 for year 2008 from Munich Re is also expected.

At year-end, after 3 consecutive years the membership fees from the KISR, Kuwait were

unpaid and were written off and 2007 year subscription from KMA, Korea was also written

off.

EXPENDITURE

More than 78% of the ISC expenditure in 2008 was on personnel costs, some £14,780 less

than 2007. During 2008 Dr Dmitry Storchak began his term as Director and Dr Peter

Dawson retired from his position of Data Collection Manager and Developer to be replaced

by Mr John Eve, Data Collection Officer. Mr Juan Benjumea and Dr István Bondár joined

the ISC as Seismologist/ Developer and Senior Seismologist/Developer, respectively. At the

end of the year one of the ISC Bulletin analysts, Mr Przemas Kowalski left the ISC to return

to Poland. The salary costs include: salaries, pension contributions, recruitment and

repatriation of a new and departing staff. The ISC salaries follow the UK academic salary

scales.

Some of the computing expenditure for new machines was paid for from the Computer

Replacement Fund. Travel expenditure in 2008 was £3700 greater than the previous year but

it should be noted that almost all of this travel resulted in either additional data or additional

funding and often both, as well as promotion of the ISC to new audiences.

RESERVES

The gain in income over expenditure for 2008 was £46,673, compared to a loss of £67,869 in

2007. The ISC total reserves, comprising the cash in the bank, building and land, the money

owed to ISC (debtors) minus the money ISC owes (creditors and remaining mortgage on the


21

building) increased during 2008 to £414,294. The ISC computer replacement fund has

decreased during 2008 by £6,584 representing purchases made. The ISC has a general reserve

of £362,506, including the cost of the building. This is equivalent to just below 10 month’s

operation of the ISC, which is well within British guidelines for charitable organizations.

CASH FLOW

Figure 19 shows receipts and outlays using dates when transactions were recorded at the bank

and the bank balances with US Dollars and Euros converted to Sterling using the exchange

rate as of the end of each month.

Figure 19. Cash flow.

The ISC has cancelled its £20,000 overdraft facility, as advised by the business manager at

the bank in the knowledge that a new overdraft could be arranged for emergency use if

contributions are delayed.

SCIENTIFIC LIAISONS

The following geophysicists and officials visited ISC premises in Thatcham during the year:

John Woodhouse – University of Oxford, UK

David Jepsen – Geoscience Australia

Matthew Purss – Geoscience Australia

-£100,000

-£50,000

£0

£50,000

£100,000

£150,000

£200,000

£250,000

£300,000

£350,000

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

TOTAL INCOME TOTAL EXPENDITURE BALANCE


22

Steven Taylor – Rocky Mountain Geophysics, US

Dale Anderson – Los Alamos National Laboratory, US

Debbie Fagan – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, US

Brian Kennett – Austrialia National University

Alan Douglas – AWE, Blacknest, UK

Roy Lilwall – AWE, Blacknest, UK

Guy Masters – Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD La Jolla, US

Gary Gibson – Seismic Research Centre, Australia

Jaroslava Plomerová – Czech Academy of Sciences

Oleg Starovoit – Russian Academy of Sciences

John Adams – Geological Survey of Canada

Anthony Hughes – Former Director of the ISC, UK

Richard Benyon – Member of Parliament for Newbury, UK

Often with the help of the hosting institution, the members of the ISC staff visited and, where

appropriate, gave a presentation to members of staff of:

Geophysical Survey, Russian Academy of Sciences (GS RAS), Obninsk, Russia

Laboratory of Geophysics and Seismology, Technological Educational Institute of

Crete, Chania, Greece

European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), Bruyères le Châtel, France

International Data Centre, CTBTO, Vienna, Austria

Laboratoire de Detection et de Geophysique (LDG), CEA, Bruyères le Châtel, France

China Earthquake Administration (CEA), Beijing, China

Institute of Geophysics, CEA, Beijing, China

China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC), CEA, Beijing, China

Hong Kong Observatory (HKO), Hong Kong, China

Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Chinese Taipei

CWB, Chinese Taipei

Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Tokyo, Japan

National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED),

Tsukuba, Japan

Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Japan

Members of the ISC staff or the ISC Executive Committee gave talks or presented posters at

the following conferences, meetings and workshops:

Nordic Seismology Seminar, Oslo, Norway


23

Seismicity of Northern Eurasia, Obninsk, Russia

IRIS/NSF Workshop on Long-Range Science Plan for Seismology, Denver, USA

European Seismological Commission, Hersonissos, Greece

Royal Society Meeting of UK Learned Society representatives, London, UK

NEIC-ISC-EMSC Coordination Meeting

World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Beijing, China

NEREIS Data Portal for Seismology, brainstorming meeting, Edinburgh, UK

Asian Seismological Commission, Tsukuba, Japan

CITATIONS OF THE ISC DATA in 2008

Plomerova, J., Babuska, V.,Kozlovskaya, E.,Vecsey, L., Hyvonen, L.T. , (2008) Seismic

anisotropy - A key to resolve fabrics of mantle lithosphere of Fennoscandia

Tectonophysics, 462 (1), p.125-136, Dec 2008

Al Marzooqi, Y., Abou Elenean, K.M., Megahed, A.S., El-Hussain, I., Rodgers, A.J., Al

Khatibi, E. ,(2008) Source parameters of March 10 and September 13, 2007, United Arab

Emirates earthquakes, Tectonophysics, 460 (1), p.237-247, Nov 2008

Souriau, A., Chevrot, S., Olivera, C. (2008) A new tomographic image of the Pyrenean

lithosphere from teleseismic data, Tectonophysics, 460 (1), p.206-214, Nov 2008

Radhakrishna, M., Lasitha, S.,Mukhopadhyay, M. (2008) Seismicity, gravity anomalies and

lithospheric structure of the Andaman arc, NE Indian Ocean,

Tectonophysics, 460 (1), p.248-262, Nov 2008

Erduran, M., Endrun, B., Meier, T. (2008) Continental vs. oceanic lithosphere beneath the

eastern Mediterranean Sea — Implications from Rayleigh wave dispersion measurements

Tectonophysics, 457 (1), p.42-52, Sep 2008

Nikolintaga, I., Karakostas, V.

Papadimitriou, E.

Vallianatos, F. (2008) The 2006 Kythira

(Greece), Mw6.7 slab-pull event: tectonic implications and the geometry of the hellenic

wadati-benioff zone Ann. Geof., 51, 823-837

Kiratzi, A. Sokos, E. Ganas, A. Tselentis, A. Benetatos, C. Roumelioti, Z. Serpetsidaki,

A., Petrou, P. (2008) The April 2007 earthquake swarm near Lake Trichonis and

implications for active tectonics in western Greece Tectonophysics, 452 (1), p.51-65, Jun

2008

I. Bondár, and K. L. McLaughlin (2008) A New Ground Truth Data Set For Seismic Studies

Seis. Res. Lett 80: 465-472.

Jean-Luc Chatelain, Bertrand Guillier, and Imtiyaz A. Parvez (2008) False Site Effects: The

Anjar Case, following the 2001 Bhuj (India) Earthquake Seis. Res. Lett, 79: 816 – 819

http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/sciruslink?src=sd&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%3F_ob%3DGatewayURL%26_origin%3DScienceSearch%26_method%3DcitationSearch%26_piikey%3DS0040195108003648%26_version%3D1%26_returnURL%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.scirus.com%252Fsrsapp%252Fsearch%253Fq%253D%2528ISC%2529%252B%252BAND%252B%2528issn%25253A00401951%2529%2526ds%253Dbls%2526ds%253Dsd%2526ds%253Dmps%2526ds%253Dcps%2526ds%253Dcpp%2526sort%253D1%2526p%253D0%2526drill%253Dyes%26md5%3D5a44269c1117d7fd99b2ebbdff8f5a07



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http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/sciruslink?src=sd&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%3F_ob%3DGatewayURL%26_origin%3DScienceSearch%26_method%3DcitationSearch%26_piikey%3DS0040195108003910%26_version%3D1%26_returnURL%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.scirus.com%252Fsrsapp%252Fsearch%253Fq%253D%2528EHB%2529%252B%252BAND%252B%2528issn%25253A00401951%2529%2526ds%253Dbls%2526ds%253Dsd%2526ds%253Dmps%2526ds%253Dcps%2526ds%253Dcpp%2526sort%253D1%2526p%253D0%2526drill%253Dyes%26md5%3D48a571737cc0cc6bc9700fd53c4f8ae7



http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/sciruslink?src=sd&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%3F_ob%3DGatewayURL%26_origin%3DScienceSearch%26_method%3DcitationSearch%26_piikey%3DS0040195108004022%26_version%3D1%26_returnURL%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.scirus.com%252Fsrsapp%252Fsearch%253Fq%253D%2528ISC%2529%252B%252BAND%252B%2528issn%25253A00401951%2529%2526ds%253Dbls%2526ds%253Dsd%2526ds%253Dmps%2526ds%253Dcps%2526ds%253Dcpp%2526sort%253D1%2526p%253D0%2526drill%253Dyes%26md5%3De0763c78cc3eff7ec5a7abc6255aa8f6



http://www.earth-prints.org/items-by-author?author=Nikolintaga%2C+I.

http://www.earth-prints.org/items-by-author?author=Karakostas%2C+V.

http://www.earth-prints.org/items-by-author?author=Papadimitriou%2C+E.

http://www.earth-prints.org/items-by-author?author=Vallianatos%2C+F.

http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/sciruslink?src=sd&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%3F_ob%3DGatewayURL%26_origin%3DScienceSearch%26_method%3DcitationSearch%26_piikey%3DS0040195108001017%26_version%3D1%26_returnURL%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.scirus.com%252Fsrsapp%252Fsearch%253Fq%253D%2528ISC%2529%252B%252BAND%252B%2528issn%25253A00401951%2529%2526ds%253Dbls%2526ds%253Dsd%2526ds%253Dmps%2526ds%253Dcps%2526ds%253Dcpp%2526sort%253D1%2526p%253D10%2526drill%253Dyes%26md5%3D9f6bc3613a4cc37b836c320c1a8b7a74




24

Lucia Luzi, Salomon Hailemikael, Dino Bindi, Francesca Pacor, Francesco Mele, and Fabio

Sabetta (2008) ITACA (ITalian ACcelerometric Archive): A Web Portal for the

Dissemination of Italian Strong-motion Data Seis. Res. Lett, 79: 716 - 722.

Scott Burdick, Chang Li, Vladik Martynov, Trilby Cox, Jennifer Eakins, Taimi Mulder,

Luciana Astiz, Frank L. Vernon, Gary L. Pavlis, and Robert D. van der Hilst (2008) Upper

Mantle Heterogeneity beneath North America from Travel Time Tomography with Global

and USArray Transportable Array Data Seis. Res. Lett, 79: 384 - 392.

Keith D. Koper, Robert B. Herrmann, and Harley M. Benz (2008) Overview of Open Seismic

Data from the North Korean Event of 9 October 2006 Seis. Res. Lett, 79: 178 - 185.

Aiming Lin and Jianming Guo (2008) Nonuniform Slip Rate and Millennial Recurrence

Interval of Large Earthquakes along the Eastern Segment of the Kunlun Fault, Northern Tibet

Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 2866 – 2878

A. L. Stork, N. D. Selby, R. Heyburn, and M. P. Searle (2008) Accurate Relative Earthquake

Hypocenters Reveal Structure of the Burma Subduction Zone Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 2815 –

2827

Lian-Feng Zhao, Xiao-Bi Xie, Wei-Min Wang, and Zhen-Xing Yao (2008) Regional Seismic

Characteristics of the 9 October 2006 North Korean Nuclear Test Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98:

2571 – 2589

Neil D. Selby (2008)Application of a Generalized F Detector at a Seismometer Array, Oct

Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 2469 – 2481

Tomoya Harada and Katsuhiko Ishibashi (2008) Interpretation of the 1993, 2001, and 2002

Guam Earthquakes as Intraslab Events by a Simultaneous Relocation of the Mainshocks,

Aftershocks, and Background Earthquakes Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 1581 - 1587

David S. Brumbaugh (2008) Seismicity and Tectonics of the Blue Ridge Area of the

Mogollon Plateau, Arizona Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 1527 – 1534

R. A. Brazier, Q. Miao, A. A. Nyblade, A. Ayele, and C. A. Langston (2008) Local

Magnitude Scale for the Ethiopian Plateau Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 2341 – 2348


25

Ileana M. Tibuleac, David H. von Seggern, John G. Anderson, Kenneth W. Smith, Arturo

Aburto, and Thomas Rennie (2008) Location and Magnitude Estimation of the 9 October

2006 Korean Nuclear Explosion Using the Southern Great Basin Digital Seismic Network as

a Large-Aperture Array Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 756 - 767

Inna Zaslavsky-Paltiel and David M. Steinberg (2008) Comparison of Methods for

Estimating Station Magnitude Corrections for Improved Seismologic Monitoring of the

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 1 - 17

Marco Olivieri, Richard M. Allen, and Gilead Wurman (2008)The Potential for Earthquake

Early Warning in Italy Using ElarmS; Bull. Seis. Soc. Am; 98: 495 - 503

Catherine Dorbath, Jérôme Van der Woerd, Sergei S. Arefiev, Eugene A. Rogozhin, and

Janna Y. Aptekman (2008) Geological and Seismological Field Observations in the

Epicentral Region of the 27 September 2003 Mw 7.2 Gorny Altay Earthquake (Russia) Bull.

Seis. Soc. Am 98: 2849 – 2865

Christian Weidle, Valérie Maupin (2008) An upper-mantle S-wave velocity model for

Northern Europe from Love and Rayleigh group velocities Geophys. J. Int 175, 1154-1168

Ekrem Zor (2008) Tomographic evidence of slab detachment beneath eastern Turkey and the

Caucasus Geophys. J. Int 175, 1273-1282

T. Nicholson, D. Clarke, J. Townend (2008) Regional earthquake location using empirical

traveltimes in a region of strong lateral velocity heterogeneity Geophys. J. Int 175, 560-570

Ping Wang, Maarten V. de Hoop, Robert D. van der Hilst (2008) Imaging the lowermost

mantle (D") and the core–mantle boundary with SKKS coda waves Geophys. J. Int 175, 103-

115

István Bondár, Eric Bergman, E. Robert Engdahl, Ben Kohl, Yu-Long Kung, Keith

McLaughlin (2008) A hybrid multiple event location technique to obtain ground truth event

locations. Geophys. J. Int 175, 185-201

B. Wawerzinek, J. R. R. Ritter, M. Jordan, M. Landes (2008) An upper-mantle upwelling

underneath Ireland revealed from non-linear tomography Geophys. J. Int 175, 253-268

João Carvalho, Taha Rabeh, João Cabral, Fernando Carrilho, Jorge Miguel Miranda (2008)

Geophysical characterization of the Ota–Vila Franca de Xira–Lisbon–Sesimbra fault zone,

Portugal Geophys. J. Int 174, 567-584

M. L. Amaru, W. Spakman, A. Villaseñor, S. Sandoval, E. Kissling (2008)A new absolute

arrival time data set for Europe Geophys. J. Int 173, 465-472


26

Sergei Lebedev, Rob D. van der Hilst (2008) Global Upper-mantle tomography with the

automated multimode inversion of surface and S-wave forms Geophys. J. Int 173, 505-518

Keith Priestley, James Jackson, Dan McKenzie (2008) Lithospheric structure and deep

earthquakes beneath India, the Himalaya and southern Tibet Geophys. J. Int 172, 345-362

Sheila Peacock, Alan Douglas (2008)Two-stage rupture of the 1999 Mw 6.0 Southern Lake

Baikal earthquake Geophys. J. Int 172, 302-310


27

SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS

The delay in production of the Reviewed ISC Bulletin has been eliminated.

1,650 USArray current and planned sites are included in the International Registry.

USArray reviewed picks are accommodated within the ISC Bulletin.

ISC hypocentre and station arrival data collection is increased by further 4 years by

including the 1960-1963 ISS data.

IASPEI Reference Event List (GT) is now accommodated within the ISC Bulletin and

also distributed by the ISC along with station arrivals.

Provisional bulletin data are now collected from approximately 20 data centres around

the world within hours/days after event occurrence, grouped and distributed next day

after submission as part of the automatic ISC Bulletin.

Considerable additional Member’s support secured for further development.

Two new members of development staff have been hired;

Finances substantially improved from last year with further funds raised for the

development of the interactive editing tool and new data search.

ISC building facilities and computer facilities have been improved;

Signed, May 15, 2009

Dr Dmitry A Storchak

Director

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